The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-05-23
ONLY A BRAKEMAN KILLED.
A Plea for the Faithful Men who Risk
Their Lives Daily.
Frona The Chicago Herald

From, the Chicago Herald.
An instance of the cruelty of our modern
civilization and its infinitely diversified APP
pliances and customs is found in the fact
that the death of a railroad employe,
through one of the minor casualties of his
calling, is no longer considered worth men,
ton in the news columns of a metropolitan
newspaper; or, if mentioned at all, line is
generally sufficient to chronicle the bare
fact, details being utterly neglected. In the
dispatches it used to be:
"By @ broken rail several freight cars
were thrown off the track near this place
last night and their contents, consisting of
valuable merchandise, almost destroyed.
The loss of the company will reach $4,000.
Passenger trains were delayed nearly an
hour A rigid investigation viii follow.
One brakeman was killed"
Formerly minor accidents to employees
were telegraphed to city papers, but now al1
correspondents are instructed to omit send
ing intelligence concerning the common
accidents of the rail, in which employees
only suffer, unless the fatalities number
more than one or some unusual circum-
stances or causes are present. Almost
every week some railroad employe
loses his life or limb in the Chi
cago railroad yards without any mention
of the casualty being made in the city
papers. This seems cruel, but the truth Is
/
| ing. AS the world goes, these items are I'M
| important, and newsmen neglect them. But
| with passengers it is quite different The
| commoneSt accident involving the safety of
| passenger or injury to his person is care
| fully investigated and reported And just
| now the papers are filed with articles de-
manding that the death-dealing stove shall
be banished, that safety gates be put up at
| all crossings, and THAT everyA possible pre-
| caution be taken to secure safety for the
| travelling public and for pedestrians and
| street travellers who must cross railroad
| tracks But not word is heard in behalf
of the employees, whom the juggernauts of
the rail are slaughtering and manning by
the thousands every year.
Only a brakeman Silledw What a
! story the figures of q railway tefl-and,
after all, there is nothing like cold figures
| to point moral or tell a tale. In Massachu-
sets last year only one passenger in 1874, 258
| was killed and one In 2, 166,931 injured.
! This ratio is not an alarming one, but when
| we come to employees the ratio is very differ
ent. There were ga casualties to employees,
| 63 of which were fatal. On the Fitchburg
road one employee out of every 81 was
| injured On other roads about one in 120.
! Most of these casualties were in coupling or
uncOupling cars. Forty-eight, or nearly one
a week, were injured in this way on one
road One can, therefore, readily believe
| that on almost any Of our larger railways of
| the West a man day is the average ratio
Of the rapacious demon of car-coupling.
Next comes casualties to train
| men from falling from trains-over
I one week In the whole State of Massachu-
sets, and probably twice or thrice as many
in IlIinois Take the Chicago, Burlington
| and Quincy road for home instance. and
than the Burlington there Is no better man
agedroad in the world. In a recent year
this road carried in Illinois 2,770, 900 passen-
gers Half dozen Of these were injured
and none killed. OF the 1900 engineers, fire.
men, hrakemen, baggagenen, switchmen
and conductors employed in Illinois more
than 200 were killed or injured In fully
one-fourth Of the cases the demon coupling
was the agent of injury or death. All
along the line of every railway in the coun-
try, and particularly in the division
station towns, where many railway en-
ployes live, will be found small armies of
widows, orphans and manned men.